


Turkish Drummers

by whitachi



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitachi/pseuds/whitachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small scene, while Shinji sleeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turkish Drummers

The light cast on the ceiling of the tiny, too-warm bedroom looked nothing like the blue-golden hue of the sun filtering through the Rose Window in the Notre Dame Cathedral. Kaworu had never seen the window, not in pictures, not in person, but he could form the image of it in his mind as clear as photography, could feel the coolness of the stone wrapped around the shards of glass. From daybreak until night, he knew that the sun would illuminate the window with a holy light, and that the colors that the glass made would shift as though alive with each changing minute of the life of the world. He also knew that it had been thousands of pieces for years now, ground into the soil and washed away in the Seine. Perhaps it had come through the sea, more water than glass, to end up warm and still around them in the bath, or cool against the back of his throat as he drank while Shinji watched the motion of his hands around the glass and his neck as he swallowed.

Perhaps it was the the tiny insinuations of glass in the unfamiliar rhythm of the blood in his veins that kept him looking at the light, unblinking. He had no plans to sleep, but after everything, he had not expected this night to be so unrestful. He could feel the pulse in Shinji's neck where the boy lay his head pressed to his shoulder, beating slow and calm in his sleep. The human body constantly begs the world to recognize that it is still alive, he thought as he counted the beats to a hundred. And it was really a remarkable thing, the human body, and the countless ways it acted and reacted without permission of the mind. When he thought about it, it seemed that the concept that humans had any control over their physical shells was only a myth.

His heart beat without him asking for it. If his mind wandered, he would not suddenly forget to breathe. Kaworu closed his eyes for a moment and tried to focus on slowing the rate of his heart down, just by will. He took long, deep breaths, in hope that that would slow the speed of the blood rushing in his veins, but his heart only beat faster in response. He opened his eyes and sighed without meaning to. The light seemed brighter now, an unconscious change in the way his pupils percieved the contrast of light and dark in the room.

Shinji's skin seemed paler in the monocrome dim, cast with a faint sheen from dried sweat. Kaworu tilted his head up to watch the boy's face in his sleep. Even as he dreamed, eyes flickering beneath their lids, an expression of dismay turned his features; his brows were drawn together, his lips were pursed downwards. Kaworu lifted his hand to brush his fingers down the boy's back, and watched as his face melted into calm again. It really was a remarkable thing to watch the heart respond even as the mind slept. It would be much the same if the boy were awake, though; Shinji could not control his heart. It beat quickly when he did not ask it to, just as the fingers on his right hand would twitch without thought, or his throat would make unplanned sounds, or all manner of betraying changes. Beneath all that, the other heart was just as wild, taking comfort from a hand it could feel to be dangerous.

Kaworu did not think of frowning, but did anyway as he thought again of his own human body, and all the ways it was not at all different from Shinji's.


End file.
